What to do with all those pieces of paper #collage

As a writer you probably have piles of paper, drafts of stories, poems, and notes stacked away and sure, you could throw them in the recycle bin or print on the other side of the paper (if you haven’t done so already) but here’s another suggestion – try transforming some of those pages into art. It can be a cathartic experience and a pleasurable distraction from writing (and we all need that from time to time!) Here’s a recent example …

It began with my withdrawal from a creative writing Masters course at the University of Adelaide. (I’m happy to say I don’t regret withdrawing, nor do I regret attempting it and that I haven’t abandoned the project, a work of fiction that has sisters as its focus). But the experience was a bit stressful and challenging and because I like to process stressful experiences through writing and making art, I thought about what I could do with the printed pile of project proposal drafts that I had filed away; I thought about the photocopied images I had of my and sister and I when we were small children; and I thought about colour.  I began by weaving an enlarged photocopied image of me and my sister (the photo was originally passport size, taken in a booth) with a draft page of my recently abandoned Masters proposal and, because I wanted the final woven image to have something delicate and beautiful within in, something that suggested patterns found in nature (as opposed to the artificial patterns of written language), I added strips of Japanese origami paper. As I typed the visible words and fragments of words, a surprising title leaked out of the weave.

Here, then, is the final cut-up, where image and text intersect and the reader/viewer (hopefully) interacts with both. The text is fragmented, meaning the reader (you) must be more active in creating meaning, (your) own meaning:

 

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uncons nursed decades.

in writ creative foregrou ers and chologic act of

of suc tionship

hine Jul chell sibling and

T ive won form the creative work thro the dev ment of the

thesis, an versa.

Th result in an disciplin roach to re earch pr

Since the ning of memory silblin repress otential to

each other m on a u ion in the y … So takes on ce, and

then is a his is the sibling trauma (Ap)

in 2003 minist psychology

reations en siblings in th

I believ ve minimized ooked entire our exi as small

children posed by the ne who stands the old who

idering t chic devnt of girls, believe isling re are

ant and because ‘prioritize e ces that re salie omen.

Up until in psy gy the sig of sibling realtion and its impact

child ps evelopm s been o ed by the prima nt-child relation

ciology and family. Terri for exm ggest

vides new explanation femal

ion, ide nd

such a f the loss of lov fear of annihilation person tion.

The ex will examine M s influential theory way it en interp.